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HOME OWNER PROPERTY TAX DEDUCTION REVIEW GUIDE

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EXAMPLE TEXT USED IN THE COMPLETE GUIDE


WHY, WHEN AND HOW TO REVIEW YOUR ASSESSMENT


There are only two ways to lower your property tax bill. You can partake in the hallowed American tradition of complaining to your local officials that the property tax rate is too high, or you can attempt to lower your assessment. The former is easy but often ineffective; the latter is harder but offers a greater chance of success.


Homeowners who protest their assessments, with a knowledge of how the system works, get their assessment reduced the majority of the time without going beyond the local assessor’s office. The best advice this guide has to offer is go to your local assessor’s office and check your property record card for mistakes of fact. Clerical errors and plain mistakes do occur during the valuation process. This guide offers a list of twenty types of common mistakes you should check up on.


The annual assessment value is considered tentative during the period of public inspection of the new tax list occurring ten days before January 10th (see N.J.S.A.54:4-38). The purpose of the ten day inspection period is to enable the taxpayer to ascertain what assessments have been made against his or her property and to confer informally with the assessor as to the correctness of the assessments. This is so that any errors may be corrected before the assessment list is filed with the County Board of Taxation on January 10th. In any year in which your property assessment changes more than the annual rate of property inflation have an informal discussion with your assessor about your tax assessment before the tentative assessment period ends on January 10th. At this point, your approach can be informal and will not require a formal, written appeal.


You have an opportunity once each year to file your formal appeal. It must be received by the County Board of Taxation on or before April 1 of the tax year, or 45 days from the date the bulk mailing of Notification of Assessment is completed in the taxing district, whichever is later.


Find three properties comparable to yours. Any adjustments required to bring those three comparable properties into conformity with yours are always applied to the value of the comparable properties you have chosen to prove your case. They are never made to the value of the subject property.

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